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SHELTER
16'13'' HDV colour
Watch video
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Nature, people and materials shaping the build environment of remote villages
in the eastern mountains of Portugal.
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In a region where the traditional architecture has suffered profound transformations with
the introduction of new materials and building techniques and foreign architectural
models, we often feel that there is a different time surrounding autochthonous buildings.
Theses houses, many of which were abandoned in recent years, more than simple
shelters, were essential places for the families’ daily lives. Extinct gestures and actions
still echo in the stonewalls. These are memories invoked throughout the empty rooms,
recollections of its inhabitants who still remember the time when those rooms were
filled with life. Also, the objects that were left behind tell us stories.
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We could speak of a different time inside these houses, a time indifferent to our presence,
indifferent to the present, a time that speaks about territorial identity, about a particular
way of building and inhabiting it, by the use of materials, that connects with landscape
in an almost mimetic way. From recordings of both the inhabitants’ memories and from the
overall soundscape, a hybrid audiovisual object emerges. One that is both connected with
a documentary vision and with a more experimental language developed around the sonic
universe of the two major materials used for building houses – stone and wood.
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This project was developed during an artist residency in a rural context at Binaural,
Nodar Artist Residency Center, in a small village in the centre of Portugal, located
approximately 150 km from Oporto and 350 km from Lisbon.
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Collective exhibition Nodar: Inscribed Territory, four video works created on the rural
context of Nodar at Viriato Theatre in Viseu, Portugal.
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Mostra Jovens Criadores 2009 (Young Creators Art Show 2009). Event organized by
Centro Português de Artes e Ideias (CPAI) sponsored by Instituto Português
da Juventude (IPJ). Évora, Portugal
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Junho das Artes 2010 (June of the Arts 2010). Selected as a Project Room, Óbidos, Portugal
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Best Short Film on Vista Curta 2010, Viseu, Portugal
Collective exhibition PANOPTIC: An Exploration - Second Annual Exhibition of New Media
Installation and Experimental Documentary Shorts at the Asymmetrick Arts Gallery
(in partnership with the Camden International Film Festival), Rockland Maine, USA
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Screened
of video works about the Paiva river, Paivascapes#1 (2010).
Municipal Library of Arouca, Portugal
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